"The Worm's" slender body covers 37 acres of land and is composed of four small hills with a truncated cliff face at its head which plunges vertically into the icy depths of the Atlantic. The inner hillock stretches 60 metres across and rises 45 metres from the surf at its feet, while its two inner hills are significantly lower tracts of land that lead to another, this time elevated causeway. This outer causeway lies only just above the high water mark and leads directly to "The Worm's" head, a sharply rising cliff that falls even more directly on the opposite side into the awaiting ocean.
The nearby Rhossili Bay is supposedly haunted and Worm's Head has no small part to play in this reputation. The occasional sound of intense booming and hissing and sighing sometimes issues forth from this islet as the pounding ocean is forced up through a natural blow hole to the surface of "The Worm". This can be a devastatingly scary sound, especially when heard in the darkness of the night on such a vast and lonely beach as Rhossili.
In 1957, the vegetation on Worm's Head was badly destroyed in a great fire that blazed for several days. During this, 4/10ths of the islet's soil layer was lost and fearful that more would disappear through the wind and rain erosion that naturally follows such circumstances, the Nature Conservancy Council seeded the area with 36 kilograms of Danish Red Fescue Seed in the autumn of 1958. At first, the resultant grass seemed to achieve its goal of curbing further erosion on the islet but, facing the average of 20 gales the area receives per year, could not withstand the salty wind and sea which lashed at it. Within a couple of years the plants had died, but by then Worm's Head's native strain of Fescue (Festuca rubra ssp. euruba var. genuina subva. prunosa) had re-established itself. With a further planting of Buck's Horn Plantain on the shallower soils, disaster had been averted.
Worm's Head from Rhossili Bay
Of interest to any keen ornithologists who might wish to pay a visit to the area, Worm's Head is a great breeding ground for sea birds with the Lesser Black-Back, Great Black-Back, Herring Gull, Kittiwake, Puffin, Shag, Manx Shearwater, Gannet, Arctic Skua and Scoter all having been recorded as having nested here. Seals can often also be seen along the outer reaches of the islet but these are best viewed by boat.
Even on the balmiest of sunny afternoons,Worm's Head can be the catalyst for some mighty waves
For first time visitors to the Gower Peninsula, Worm's Head really should be your first choice of destination.
